Countdown to Christmas

Maggie has been a big fan of advent calendars for a long time now. Unfortunately, even though they are not the chocolate kind that her mother used to pop open all in one day like some kind of carnival game, she does not have the concept of using it to track the days down yet. She has four different ones in her room, and a singing advent bear. Well actually the bear has been kicked out because he’s too committed to keeping track of the actual date and keeps singing it in her face. Nobody likes a know-it-all. Especially a singing one. So it’s sitting on the stairs. I hope it has insurance, because I have a funny feeling there is going to be a workplace accident in its future.

Thursday night Maggie got a plate of cookies and a glass of milk out and put them under the tree. She kept insisting they were for Santa.

December 16th is going to be highly disappointing for you Maggie.

I kept envisioning what our morning was going to look like. I mean all the mornings here are rough, but by Friday we have lost all enthusiasm for getting out of bed and going anywhere. And when there never was any enthusiasm in the first place, we’re talking negative numbers here. And that’s a regular Friday. I don’t think there is a scale that goes deep enough to measure the level of, “I’m going to burn the planet down if you make me go to school on what I firmly believe to be Christmas morning,” that I was expecting.

She sprung out of bed at 5am and promptly ran into her twin’s room, threw on the lights, and dragged her to the floor. There was some other stuff that I vaguely remember Grace complaining about, but I was busy playing dead sleeping.

Shockingly Maggie didn’t actually seem that upset that Santa hadn’t come. Maybe she was just planning ahead by putting the milk and cookies out for him nine days early, and she knew all along what day it was. Since procrastination is an integral symbol of our family crest (or it would be if anyone had gotten around to designing it yet), I am more worried that she is hoping the milk will give him instant, crippling diarrhea and she’ll be able to sleigh-jack the flying reindeer while he’s in the sh*tter. Or have a good dig through the sack for toys she’d like to keep. While she is the sweetest girl with a giant heart, she is also more devious than Swiper the Fox, and when she sees an opportunity, she takes it. I just have to teach her how to frame people and learn pin numbers, and then our retirement plan might not depend on living in Grace’s basement.

In the meantime, just in case Maggie is still confused about what date it is, I’ve found another advent calendar to add to the mix. And since she steals all of ours, this is one that the rest of the family can actually refer to. I’m probably going to have to bolt the TV down like in hotel rooms.

A photo posted by Don’t Lick the Deck (@nerdgirlmom) on Dec 19, 2014 at 11:55am PST

I know there’s only a week left until Christmas (OMG!!!), but if your kids (or you!) are like mine, and need something to get them through this last week (that feels like an incredible injustice since school goes right to the 23rd), you might find this calendar handy:

In fact, I should probably put this calendar away, because I feel myself planning a day of blanket snuggling, cookie eating, and Netflix watching. That was a lot of snow to shovel and ice to scrape this weekend. I think Santa can wrap things up for my holiday prep, and I can take a long winter’s nap.

Disclosure: I am a member of the Netflix Stream Team and I receive perks in exchange for writing honestly about our family’s addiction use of Netflix. Plus I get to lie on the couch legitimately claim I’m working.